Hikaru no Go: Shorts of All Sorts
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: Short short Hikaru no Go ficlets, too short to be posted as their own stories. Drama and humour. Contains spoilers.
1. The Silent Path

**The Silent Path**

Sai had wondered, when the boy and girl had found his goban, what kind of host the God of Go would give to him this time. He should not have expected another Torajiro.

Sai learned that the modern age was filled with many things, too many things, ice cream parlours and video games and cell phones and internet, school and homework and clubs and entrance exams and _I'm sorry, Sai, I can't play Go anymore_.

It was sad, so sad, these children who had forgotten how to love Go.

There were birthdays and first dates and first kisses, first days of spring and rainfall and umbrellas (some things did not change, he thought nostalgically), and there was that first car accident when Sai was so scared and helpless, a ghost who was useless for anything but Go.

_I'm okay, it's okay, I'm okay_, weak smile that was like Torajiro's smile before death had claimed him, the smile of a child who loved and loved well.

Sai was so sad in the days following the accident that the doctor had had to prescribe a double dose of nausea pills, because there was one thing that Sai could do aside from play Go, he could make his host sick with his sadness, and Sai wondered if he'd long ago killed Torajiro with his sadness, tears and blood mingling on a goban, which only made him sadder still until the dose of nausea pills tripled.

Sai asked his child: Do you wish you had never met me?

_No, of course not, you're my best friend_, Akari answered sweetly, and as soon as she got out of the hospital Sai was allowed to play NetGo until his sadness went away.


	2. Marked

**Marked**

Yashiro is bold, Yashiro is fearless, Yashiro is taking the tengen.

But here is the truth of the matter: when Yashiro is not in front of a goban, he understands that it is not courage that drives him, but desperation. He takes the tengen again and again because he is afraid that one day this will all end for him at a word from his father's mouth.

Yashiro is afraid that his last words will be "I have nothing." So, right now, he makes sure he has something to remember. There is a mark on the goban that is his.


	3. Threesome

**Threesome**

Hikaru never thought he'd see the day when Touya and Waya agreed on something. It was unexpectedly weird, seeing their eyes meet like that, then seeing their heads, as one, swivelling around to stare at him.

He should have known they would make him do this.

"You got no choice, Shindou, it's two to one."

"Yes, you should just submit to us."

Waya's eyes were strangely intense and fixed on Hikaru. Touya's voice was like rich, dark chocolate. Hikaru felt totally creeped out.

They grabbed his arms with rough hands, and though he struggled valiantly it was to no avail. He was doomed to obey their whims.

"But I want ramen!" he protested as they manhandled him into the sushi restaurant.


	4. Dancing Queen

**Dancing Queen**

"So, Touya-san, I hear you and Shindou 9-dan have something going on between the two of you," said Gossip Number One with a significant waggle of her eyebrows.

Gossip Number Two raised her pinky in some sort of coded gesture. "Rivals, is it?" she chimed in.

Touya sighed. Ten years was far too soon for a junior high school reunion as far as he was concerned. While his senpai from the Go club had, for the most part, somehow evolved into civilized human beings, a fair number of the female members obviously needed more excitement in their lives.

He managed to excuse himself from the chittering mass of women by saying he wanted to find Shindou.

"Don't let us keep you, Touya-san, we wouldn't want to keep you away from your _rival_."

"It's so sweet, isn't it?"

He found Shindou gawking at Hidaka, who had grown even taller and bustier since junior high. She was wearing a very short red dress and being spun around by Kishimoto in a dance that could only be described as indecently leggy.

Touya restrained himself from doing something rash and merely tapped Shindou on the shoulder.

"Hm? Oh, hi."

_Oh, hi? _

"Enjoying the view?" Touya asked coolly.

"Yeah," Shindou said, finally tearing his eyes away from the spectacle. "I'd just forgotten how _hot _Kishimoto-san is."


	5. Clothes Make the Mom

**Clothes Make the Mom**

Hikaru looked at Touya. Then he looked again. Specifically, he looked at what Touya was _wearing._

White sweater made of some kind of fluffy material that clung to the body, check. Rose-coloured slacks, neatly pressed, poofing out slightly at the hips, check. Creamy leather shoes with cutesy tassels, check. Hikaru not imagining things, check.

There was no way Hikaru's imagination could possibly conjure up something like this.

"What are you staring at?" Touya asked, head cocked to the side.

Hikaru was not a rude boy when he could help it, but sometimes he just couldn't help it.

"Does your mom still buy your clothes for you?" he ventured.

Touya glared at him. "Of course not. I'm too old for that now."

Hikaru somehow didn't feel relieved.

"Nowadays I just borrow clothes from her," Touya added.


	6. Things Left Behind

**Things Left Behind**

She had expected Hikaru to move out years ago, like his friend Waya had done, but when the day came she still wasn't ready for it.

Hikaru didn't like being fussed over, she knew. He was nineteen years old, a grown man who hadn't needed her to take care of him for a long time. So when his room was packed up and he was making one final pass over it to make sure he hadn't missed anything, she didn't cry, didn't make reference to his childhood, didn't even offer him any sort of useful advice for him to ignore.

She didn't do any of those things until he looked her straight in the eye and said, "I'm leaving this in my room, just in case," and handed her the goban he'd had since he'd been a child.

That's when she started crying.

He offered her some tissue from his pocket like he'd been expecting this to happen; she took the tissue with mixed feelings. Since the dam had broken she couldn't stop now. She started talking about how his grandpa had given Hikaru that goban and how could he leave it behind now that grandpa was gone?

Hikaru just said, "I have to leave things behind. Do you think this is easy? I played so many games on this goban, I learned to play Go in here." He looked around the bare room, his eyes bright with emotion. "I have to leave things behind," he repeated.

Her son seemed to be saying so much in that statement, more than he was telling her (he was always like that now, so full of wisdom that she could not share in), which started her crying even more. She took the goban from him and promised it would never be dusty.

He smiled at her, like she was the one who needed taking care of, and said, "Why don't you learn to play Go on it? You can take it out of my room, just put it back when you're done with it. As long as there's something in here to come back to."

She liked that thought. She didn't know if she would like Go, but she would try it for the sake of her son and her father.

"Something to come back to," she said, smiling through her tears.


	7. Go! Salon!

**Go! Salon! **

It was a rough crowd that frequented this salon, Hikaru could tell. The smoke was so thick he could almost chew on it. Chew on it like a cigar. Like all the cigars people were chewing on in here. Yeah, that's what it felt like.

"Touya, I'm here!" he said loudly.

A dozen heads slowly craned around to stare at him. A man behind the counter was pouring a drink into a dirty glass and squinting his beady little eyes. "You the sheriff?" he asked, but it sounded more like, "Yeeeww the shirrrriiifff?"

Hikaru blinked. "No, I'm Shindou 2-dan. What's the name of this salon?"

"You got the wrong place, boyo. This here's a _saloon_."

"My mistake," Hikaru replied with an embarrassed bow before skedaddling out of there.

* * *

"Touya, where the heck are you?" Hikaru screamed, trying to be heard above all the noise in this place.

"Aren't you a little young to be in here?" yelled a man who was seated in front of some kind of large glass and metal rectangular device in which small silver spheres could be seen pinging all over the place and could be heard making lots of _paching! paching! paching!_ noises and this was a pachinko salon, wasn't it.

"Yes, I'm too young to be in here! Bye!"

The man didn't even blink.

* * *

"What is this place?" Hikaru asked without preamble.

A very scary, very familiar face loomed in front of him. "I think you took a wrong turn," said Kaga, puffing on his cigarette as he slammed a shougi piece on the board in front of him.

Hikaru coughed on the smoke. "See you some other time, Kaga."

* * *

"This better not be a goddamn Othello salon."

"You bet it is! Wanna play?"

"No thanks, bye."

* * *

"Touya, I'm here!" Hikaru declared as he opened the doors to what he _knew_ was the right building.

The woman at the counter stared at him. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I'm meeting someone--this is a hair salon, isn't it?"

"Yes," said a seated woman whose head was encased in some kind of glass dome. She didn't even look up from her magazine.

"YES, I've found it! Er, have you seen my friend? His name's Touya Akira, he looks like a girl. He needs a haircut real bad."

"Shindou," said Touya, appearing out of nowhere. "What are you talking about?"

"Touya! Finally!"

"What do you mean, finally? You're the one who's late. As usual."

"I'm not the one who wanted to meet somewhere stupid like this. Nice haircut by the way."

"Thanks. Are we going to go now?"

"Yeah, yeah. So where's this go salon you were talking about?"

"Well...you see, Ogata-san was supposed to show it to me today but he said he was too busy, so I'm not sure where it is. I thought we could just look in the buildings around here and hopefully we'll find it--Shindou, where are you going?"

"To the saloon, for a drink. You dumbass."

-End-

* * *

Author's notes:

I wrote this fic entirely out of a desire to make salon/saloon jokes. And yes, I realize now that it's pachinko _parlours_, not salons, but it's too late now, damn it!

Before I had a title for this fic, the text file was labelled "dumb idea."

Also, I'm rather annoyed that it turned out to be Yet Another Fic That Makes Fun of Touya's Hair, but I couldn't think of any other way to end it. Go salons...hair salons...same diff.


	8. Happy As a Pan

A/N: This fic is a crossover with the animanga series _Yakitate! Japan_.

**Happy As a Pan**

Isumi had failed the pro exam. Isumi had FAILED the pro exam. He was sitting on a bench in the park, in the rain, his head hung low, so he could comtemplate how he had FAILED the pro exam yet again. With a capital "F." "F" as in "Fuck I Failed Again."

"The world is a dark and lonely place, isn't it?" asked a smooth, gently-accented voice to his left.

Isumi raised his head and beheld the most blond-haired, blue-eyed man he'd ever seen.

"I'm Brad Kid," said the most blond-haired, blue-eyed man Isumi had ever seen. Oh god, a foreigner. Time to quietly freak out.

"Uh, hello," Isumi replied.

"You look like you could use a hand. Solar Hands, to be precise."

"...I'm sorry?"

Mr. Kid sat down on the bench and, to Isumi's horror, wormed his fingers around Isumi's.

"They aren't quite Solar, but they're very warm. The hands of a bread artisan."

"Actually, they're the hands of a go player." But as Isumi said the words, he could feel himself getting depressed all over again. It almost made him forget how seriously creeped out he was. He wished Mr. Kid would let go of his hands.

"You ever heard the expression, 'happy as a pan?'" Mr. Kid went on blithely. "We say it in America because we like bread so much. Get it? Bread equals pan equals Japan? Ha ha ha."

"Ha ha ha?"

"You've got a great sense of humour. Have you ever thought about becoming a baker?"

Isumi could honestly say he never had.

Mr. Kid (finally) let go of Isumi's hands. He wiggled his fingers in a manner that would have been highly disturbing on anyone else, but was merely freakishly, life-scarringly disturbing on this guy. "Look here, kiddo. I've got Goddess Hands--one step up from Solar Hands. Hands of a Goddess, right here. But let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Hands of a Goddess?" repeated Isumi, heart thumping wildly. Surely he didn't mean...the Hand of God? One step down, perhaps?

"I know what you're thinking. And I can get you exactly what you want." Mr. Kid winked one jolly blue eye.

Isumi leaned forward just a little, despite himself. "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well," said Mr. Kid, but Isumi was distracted by whatever he was about to say by a lanky half-naked guy with an afro who ran by waving his hands in the air and screaming something about his pan not panning out.

"I'm only HALF-BAKED!!" confirmed afro-boy before disappearing into the bushes.

"...and if you follow this training program religiously," Mr. Kid went on, "you'll have Solar Hands in a month. Like that guy you just saw. May cause nausea heartburn indigestion upset stomach diarrhea internal bleeding appendicitis seizures blindness pregnancy schizophrenia cancer flesh-eating diseases and baldness, I guarantee it."

"Baldness?" Isumi blinked a few times, not sure if he had seen or heard right. "But that guy had an afro."

"Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts."

Isumi looked down gloomily at his decidedly Polar Hands. Even passing the pro exam wasn't worth having an afro or being bald. And how the hell was that "training program" supposed to help him play go? Come to think of it, how were warm hands supposed to help him either? He was very confused. And that was a feeling he was used to. Yes, he was on solid ground again.

"You know," said Isumi firmly, "I feel a lot better about myself now. I think I can train for the pro exam on my own. Thank you, sir."

Mr. Kid's smile didn't change at all. "Glad to be of service, kiddo."

After they said goodbye Isumi immediately ran away to become a clown in the circus but was rejected on account of his inability to speak fluent Estonian while doing a triple back flip, after which he flew to China and finally passed the fucking pro exam.

-The End-


	9. Peeping Ping

Author's note: This is actually the second version of this story. The original version, which had some Mandarin in it, can be found at http// flonnebonne . livejournal . com / 26626 . html (take out the spaces to get the real URL)

**Peeping Ping  
Version 2: Attack of the Clones**

Yang Hai heard two nearly identical screams coming from down the hall. One scream was slightly higher in pitch than the other.

"That's coming from my room, isn't it," he asked rhetorically.

His friends muttered something under their breaths and kept their eyes glued to their kifu books.

More screaming from the direction of his room. Le Ping had a good set of lungs on him for such a whiny brat. "Yang Haaaaaaaai! They're doing it on your bed!"

"Don't tell it to the whole building!" Waya had an equally good set of lungs, no surprise there.

Yang Hai sighed and excused himself (not like his so-called friends cared) and walked down the corridor to his doom. Room. Whatever. He poked his head in and saw Le Ping jumping from the bed to the cot and back again like a monkey on steroids. Waya was jumping around after Le Ping like an idiot, while Isumi was noticeably _not _jumping around because he was trying to turn himself invisible.

Le Ping was the first to notice Yang Hai's presence. "Hey! Hey! Guess what! They were doing _it _on your bed!"

"My bed?" Yang Hai looked at Isumi, who looked pointedly at the ceiling. "_My bed_?" he said again, this time in Japanese.

"Shut up! We were _not _on his bed," protested Waya.

"What?" Le Ping shouted, seeming to think that if he was loud enough Waya would understand him. "I don't understand the words coming out of your mouth!"

"What?" Waya yelled back. "I don't understand the words coming out of your mouth!"

"No one understands the words coming out of either of your mouths," Isumi added helpfully.

Yang Hai sighed (he seemed to be doing that a lot today). He was so going to regret this. He said to Le Ping in Mandarin, "Waya said that he and Isumi were not having sexual relations on my bed."

"Fine, you were doing it on the _other _bed." Le Ping stuck out his tongue at Waya, who returned the favour before giving Yang Hai an expectant look. "Well?"

"He said you were doing it on the cot."

"You have no proof," retorted Waya, crossing his arms in front of him.

"What?" said Le Ping.

"Proof, you got none," supplied Yang Hai.

"You have no proof you didn't." Le Ping likewise crossed his arms. The clones stared each other down with identical stances and identical glares, like an experiment in CG technology gone horribly wrong, or a George Lucas movie gone horribly right. Same thing, really.

"By the way," Yang Hai said to Waya, "he basically just called you a liar."

"Yes! Liar!" Le Ping apparently knew at least one word of Japanese.

"You're the one who's a liar!" Waya loomed menacingly over Le Ping.

"Liar liar liar!" Le Ping climbed up on Yang Hai's bed so he could match Waya's height.

"It's so much worse when there are two of them," Isumi said apologetically.

Yang Hai massaged his forehead. "No kidding."

"Look, It's not our fault this pipsqueak is a peeping tom," Waya complained.

"I'm not Peeping Tom, I'm Le Ping!"

Waya tried to grab Le Ping again but the smaller boy was too fast.

"Isumi!" he cried, latching onto Isumi's leg. "What do you need this fake for? You have me!"

"Um...what?" Isumi blushed.

"He said, 'What do you need this fake for, you have me.'"

"He doesn't _want _jailbait," Waya snapped, finally managing to get a hold of Le Ping. "Now get out!"

"Waaah!" wailed Le Ping as he was dragged across the room. He managed to brace himself against the door frame before Waya could throw him out. "Isumi! Help!"

"I'm sorry, Le Ping, I'll play with you another time," Isumi replied, looking away.

"But your stupid boyfriend is trying to kill me!"

Yang Hai had just about had it. "Le Ping, shut up. Waya and Isumi, I don't care what you get up to on the spare bed, just leave my bed alone. And lock the door for chrissakes."

He plucked Le Ping out of Waya's hands, carried him into the hallway, and slammed the door shut behind him just as Le Ping cried out, "I love you and I'm carrying your baby!"

Yang Hai lifted Le Ping up to eye level and told him clearly, "I am not translating that."

"Let me go!"

"Yeah, like I'm gonna do that."

"Come on, I have an idea. Let me down, I'll be quiet.

Yang Hai didn't have the strength to hold on to an insane, hyperactive kid forever. He dropped Le Ping, who immedately started walking in place with loud then successively softer footsteps. Ah, he was pretending to walk away.

After about half a minute, Le Ping tiptoed his way to the door and put his ear against it. Yang Hai joined him silently, all the while cursing softly in Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and English and feeling slightly out of his mind.

He heard Isumi's voice. "You're still in the mood after all that?"

Make that _completely_ out of his mind.

"Especiallyafter all that," growled Waya.

There was a small yelping sound. "Shouldn't we use the other bed?"

"There is no way in hell I'm moving now. And by the way, you are _not _going to 'play with that brat some other time.'"

"We'll see about that," muttered Le Ping. "I told you they were doing it on your bed."

Yang Hai just pressed his ear a little closer to the door. "Yeah, yeah. Now shut up so I can listen."

-End-

* * *


	10. Super Natural

**Super Natural**

"My hair is totally, utterly natural," said Hikaru. "In fact, it's _super_ natural."

Waya gave him a once-over. "Right. Supernatural."

"It is!"

Touya suddenly popped out of nowhere and said, "You realize that 'totally natural' and 'supernatural' mean opposite things?"

Hikaru (who was never surprised anymore whenever Touya surprisingly popped out of nowhere) gave Waya a look that said _Touya is being a total Kaio graduate again_ .

But Waya nodded his head sagely and said, "I agree with Touya." Then he blinked a few times and a frown appeared on his face. "I actually agree with Touya. I think I need to leave now."

And he did just that.

Touya gave Hikaru a bemused look. "What started that conversation?"

"Oh, Waya was saying my hair was a sign of me being weird, which it's not and I'm not."

"You can't actually believe it's not weird to have hair like yours. And to claim that hair like yours is natural."

"I was kidding, okay?"

"So it's not natural, or even supernatural."

"There's nothing supernatural about me!" Hikaru protested, a little too forcefully.

"I don't understand this conversation," Touya sighed and walked away.

Hikaru scowled in Touya's general direction for a while. Then he ran a hand through his hair and wondered what it would be like not to have any blond in it. Fewer stupid questions, he could be sure of that.

"Maybe I should go natural," he thought aloud.

"_Au naturel_ ?" said Ogata, who was passing by. "I'd like to see that."

"What does that mean?" asked Hikaru.

"Nothing you need to know," Ogata purred. "On a related note, I just heard Akira muttering something about your hair being supranational."

"That's _super_natural. I don't even know what that other word means, so it can't be that."

"That makes sense," said Ogata, then paused as if to digest what he had just said. "Anyway, what makes your hair supernatural?"

"It's not. That was just a joke that got blown out of proportion."

Ogata's eyes turned sharp and glittery beneath his glasses.

"Supernatural, huh. This wouldn't have anything to do with the internet player Sai, would it?"

"This has nothing to do with Sai!" Hikaru yelled, because it was the truth. Sai had never helped Hikaru with his hair, just his Go.

Ogata pushed his glasses up and sort of tossed his hair, but in a totally masculine way. "Well, I guess it can't be helped. I'll figure it out someday, Shindou, mark my words." Then he, too, walked away.

Hikaru watched him go with a sense of insulted outrage burning throughout him, all the way down to the tips of his blonde bangs. Ogata was just the last in a long string of people out to annoy him today. There was nothing _unnatural _about having hair like his, right? Right.

Then he went home and touched up his roots for four hours and sacrificed a small animal to the gods of nice hair, like he did every day.

The end.


	11. Yang Hai is a Pimp

**Yang Hai is a Pimp**

Isumi was in deep trouble. And not just because he was losing a game against a small and adorably precocious Chinese boy. No, he was in deep trouble because, about twenty moves in, Zhao Shi proudly announced in Japanese, "Yang Hai is a pimp."

Isumi assumed at first that this was a linguistic mistake. He cracked open his Mandarin dictionary, found the word "pimp" and showed it to Zhao Shi, who nodded vigorously.

Shit.

Isumi put down a black stone on the board without really thinking about it. He looked around the game room for someone to help him, but no one was around this late at night. He checked his dictionary one more time. He was stalling, but not very well.

Finally, Isumi gathered up his courage and asked, in Japanese, "By 'pimp,' do you mean that he has a fancy car, or that he has a cane, or something fairly...neutral like that?" He didn't sound very sure of himself even _to _himself.

"Cannot answer," Zhao-kun replied mysteriously. Then he said a few things in Mandarin that Isumi didn't catch at all, while simultaneously playing a white stone that took complete advantage of Isumi's last distracted hand. That was Zhao Shi for you. He was a baby-faced ten-year-old whose earnestness was rivalled only by Le Ping's brattiness, and he was also a terrifying, take-no-prisoners tyrant on the go board. And now he was also apparently a budding gossip monger.

With his next hand Isumi made one last desperate bid for the game and one last desperate bid for his own sanity. "Are you sure you know what that word means?"

Zhao-kun tilted his head to the side, obviously not understanding the Japanese. He simply played another devastating hand and waited for Isumi's response.

"I have totally lost," Isumi mumbled, opting out before the situation got any more embarrassing. Zhao-kun rewarded him with one of his beaming, sweetheart smiles.

- 0 - 0 -

By the time Isumi made it back to Yang Hai's dorm room, he'd resolved not to say anything about Zhao-kun's...insinuations, because how could they possibly be true? Yang-san was a serious, dedicated go professional! Well, mostly serious. And pretty dedicated. Except when he wanted to play computer games or talk about Japanese celebrities. But when he felt like it, the guy could be pretty intense. _Just not like that._

Also, Yang-san just didn't dress well enough to be a pimp. Isumi knew nothing about Beijing outside of the confines of the Go Institute, but he was pretty sure that pimps didn't roam the capital in slippers and Hawaiian shirts. Probably. Maybe.

He had a sudden image of Yang-san making shady deals in shady alleys wearing nothing but his bedtime shorts and wife-beater tank top and a shark-like grin on his face, and shuddered.

"Yaugh," he said aloud.

"What's 'yaugh'?" came Yang Hai's voice from behind him.

"Ah, hi," Isumi said intelligently as Yang-san slouched into the room. "Nothing."

Yang-san's thin, expressive eyebrows quirked up. "You sure? Anything you want to talk about? I'm supposed to be coaching you to be able to control your emotions better after all."

_Definitely not._ "No, that's all right. I...think I'm pretty worn out today. Going to hit my bed a little earlier than usual." Isumi suddenly felt very uncomfortable mentioning his bed around Yang Hai.

"Suit yourself," Yang-san shrugged. He wasn't the type to pry. He sat down at his computer chair, his back to Isumi, and started typing away. "You gonna get changed for bed now, Isumi-kun?"

"Ah, right. Of course." Isumi fumbled around in his duffle bag for his spare t-shirt and pyjama pants. Yang-san had told him to get changed. He was probably just concerned about the progress of Isumi's training, that was all. He wasn't going to do anything pimp-like-that was just Zhao Shi's overactive imagination turning tricks on him.

_Playing _tricks on him, he mentally corrected himself.

"Hey, since tomorrow's our day off, I'm going to take you shopping to get you some new clothes," Yang-san said suddenly. "You have hardly anything here."

Isumi, who was just pulling on a ratty old black t-shirt, felt a tingly horror creeping its way up his spine.

"Thank you, but that's not necessary," he said awkwardly. "I can make do with what I have."

"You're putting on that Richard Kern shirt right now, aren't you?" Yang-san said, spinning his computer chair around so he could face Isumi. "I've heard of Richard Kern. Reeeeal interesting work he does. Wanna see?" With that, Yang Hai spun back around, typed something on his computer and slid his chair aside to let Isumi have a view of the screen.

Wow, that sure looked like porn. "Um," Isumi said, and didn't know what to say after that as Yang Hai clicked on several images in rapid succession.

"Pretty artsy stuff," Yang-san muttered. "Figures you'd have that kind of taste."

"I don't-"

"I'm not here to judge." Yang-san looked up at Isumi with a big lopsided leer on his face. His eyebrows were wagging up and down as if eyebrow wagging was going out of style. "I'm just not sure you want to advertise it to the whole world."

"I didn't know!"

Yang-san leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. "Sure, sure! Nothing to be ashamed of."

"At least I'm not a pimp," Isumi retorted without thinking.

Yang-san's chair spontaneously tipped over and dumped him on floor.

"Shit," he said, twisting around to look up at Isumi, eyes wide. "You heard that thing?"

"Oh god, so it's true," Isumi said incredulously.

"No, no!"

Isumi moaned (_but not like that_) and covered his face with this hand. He would have to start staying at the hotel again. It was almost certainly going to interrupt his training. Who was going to play with him in the evenings? (_but not like that!_) How was he going to get enough money to pay for the hotel? He'd only decided to stay in China for two whole months because he'd expected to get free lodging. Free lodging in a pimp's room. He was indebted to a pimp and he was broke. He knew enough about the world to know what the next step in this sordid little tale was. What if it that was Yang Hai's plan all along, getting Isumi at his mercy like this?

Yang Hai had gotten up off the floor and he was pacing around and babbling in Mandarin or his Yunnan dialect or maybe even Korean-Isumi had no idea. He was clueless and totally dependent on Yang Hai here. He needed to escape.

"I want to go home," Isumi said, trying to sound like a strong and confident young go player and not like a future heroin-addicted rent boy.

Yang Hai finally switched to Japanese again. "No, I've been trying to say-it's just a stupid rumour! People are making jokes because you've been sleeping in my room and you're younger and good-looking and everyone knows I have a thing for Japanese guys-look, it's really stupid. Don't leave over something as stupid as this!"

Isumi gave Yang Hai a hard look. Yang-san's face was scrunched up in what looked like genuine distress. He was standing up straight and facing Isumi head-on instead of slouching around the way he usually did.

And...he was wearing slippers and ugly shorts and he puttered around the Chinese Go Institute all day, and in his spare time he fiddled with his computer and spouted ludicrous dreams about building a go-playing supercomputer. How could someone like that be a pimp?

Isumi deflated, his accusations draining out of him as quickly as they'd come. He sat down heavily on his bed. He felt very stupid. "Boy, do I feel stupid," he said, just to punctuate the point.

Yang-san scratched his head and sat down gingerly next to Isumi. "Sorry about the stupid."

Isumi gave him a sheepish look. "You can't control what other people say."

"But you can maybe control what kind of t-shirt you wear."

Isumi winced inwardly, and he involuntarily looked up at the computer monitor, which still showed...those pictures. "Yeah, let's go shopping tomorrow."

Yang-san let out a relieved sigh and said, "Yeah, sounds like a plan. Let's do that. We'll go nice and early. Before most of the morons around here are up, so they can't make any comments. I'm gonna go brush my teeth and get changed for bed."

He got up and started trudging his way to bedroom. Isumi kind of just stared after him for a few seconds before remembering something that Yang Hai had blurted out a minute before.

"What was that you said about liking Japanese guys?"

-End-


	12. Said Sai to the Honinbou

Author's note: This poem is missing some formatting because FFnet won't allow you to put spaces at the beginning of a line. So...you might want to read it at my LJ instead: h t t p : / / f l o n n e b o n n e . l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m / 5 5 9 9 5 . h t m l (remove the spaces from the URL)**.  
**

* * *

**Said Sai to the Honinbou**

Poetry asks for the best word  
Precisely.  
Go asks for the best hand  
Only.

And yet  
and yet.

There is room here  
for infinite shapes.  
Colours  
beyond black and white.  
Ladders, that lead to  
windows, that open to  
Universes  
where  
Stars wait to be captured  
and a god waits patiently  
for company.

**Said the Honinbou to Sai**

A god asks for the best hand  
Precisely.  
A hand asks for another hand  
Only.

And yet  
and yet.

There is room here for  
paper fans that carry dreams  
calloused fingertips that  
carry fragments of  
you  
from far long ago to  
me  
to the  
far away future  
where  
ghosts write imperfect patterns on kaya and paper and  
computer screens  
where  
memory fades but never forgets  
completely  
the sound of  
your voice whispering  
shapes that I never knew  
were poetry.


	13. Two by Four

**Two by Four**

"Oh my god," said Waya. "Get off me."

"What?" replied Touya sleepily.

"Oh my god. Oh my god." Waya couldn't stop saying 'oh my god.' "Are you naked? Oh my god, I'm naked too. Shit." He pushed Touya and the covers off of him.

Touya rolled around a few times before sitting up blearily.

"What the hell are _you_ doing in my bed?" he finally managed to ask once he got a good look at Waya.

"What the hell were _you_ doing lying all over me? Oh my god." Waya looked sick. "You were on top. No way."

"Why does that matter?"

Waya chose to ignore that question. "How did this happen?"

"Obviously, something was in that punch we drank so much of last night."

Waya looked down at himself. "Shit, I'm gonna put on some clothes."

When he got back, he said to Touya, "If you and Shindou weren't so noisy all the time they would have let you two share a room, and that sounded so wrong in context."

"What?"

"Just shut up. Okay? No more talking. Talking hurts my head. I'm getting a new room, got it? I'll complain to the organizers. You can stay in here with...that." Waya gestured at the rumpled blanket Touya was still using to cover himself.

"Fine," Touya replied shortly.

"Fine."

"Fine!"

"Okay!"

Waya wheeled his luggage out the room.

* * *

Meanwhile...

Isumi had a blank look on his face. "I can't believe we did that."

"I think Ogata-san spiked the punch," Shindou offered.

"You're only fifteen. I'm nineteen. It was probably _illegal_."

"We're not gonna tell anyone. We're not _that_ stupid."

Isumi ignored him and wrung his hands. "You're practically a child!"

"I am not a child!"

"Maybe nothing happened."

Shindou lifted up the blanket on his bed and peered under it. "No, something definitely happened."

"Why did I take that third drink? I'm too old to give in to peer pressure. I _knew_ I tasted alcohol."

"You only had three drinks? I had like five."

"And I _know_ I can't handle drinking, it runs in my family."

"Are you actually listening to me or are you just talking to yourself?"

"God, how am I going to face Waya?"

Shindou blinked several times. "Okay, that was more information than I needed. Look, if you like Waya that much why don't you go sleep in his room? Then Touya can come here."

"I can't believe I lost my virginity to a fifteen year old, " Isumi moaned.

"Or maybe I'll just change rooms," Shindou said with a sigh, taking his luggage and shutting off the lights as he left. Isumi could probably benefit from some time alone in the dark.

* * *

They met at the elevator, each eyeing the other's luggage warily.

"You changing rooms?" Waya finally asked.

"Yeah," said Shindou. "You?"

"Same. Can't stand being in the same room as Touya."

"I figured you two would have done something bad to each other by now."

Waya winced. "Something like that."

"Anyway, you wanna switch?"

"Hell yes."

"Sounds good. Don't have too much fun with Isumi-san. He's kind of in a, um, bad state."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind. Just get in there and fix him. And ignore anything he says, he's a bit hung over right now."

"Yeah, same with Touya. I am so glad to get out of rooming with that guy."

"I hate to say it, but I'll be glad to get out of rooming with Isumi-san too. It's pretty awkward."

"Guess we weren't meant to be paired off like this, huh?"

"Yeah. You stay with Isumi-san, I'll stay with Touya. That way everyone is happy."

"Fine with me."

"Yeah, see you."

AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. THE END.

* * *

Author's note:

This fic was written for the first blind_go challenge (on livejournal) in 2006.


	14. Across the Board

**Across the Board**

**KAGA**

Kaga listened to the ghost's sob story in silence.

Then he leaned forward and put out his cigarette on the goban, right on the bloodstain.

"Sorry, I'm a shougi player."

The next day, Kaga hired an exorcist.

**GOKISO**

This exorcist was not helping at all.

"The ghost is right behind you!" insisted Gokiso. "He's sticking his tongue out at me and making stupid bunny ears over your head! I'm telling you, he came from that goban, the cheap old one with the stains on it and...and, I need to throw up!" He grabbed the exorcist's long sleeve (he heard an indignant "hey!") and covered his mouth with it until the nausea passed. When he dropped the sleeve it was only a little wet and damn it was that blasted exorcist picking up his skirts and trying to leave?

"Wait!" yelled Gokiso. "You're not done here!"

"I think I am," replied the spiritualist coldly.

Gokiso wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. "At least have a look at my wares before you leave, my good man? I have here a flawless kaya goban that once belonged to the great Honinbo Shuusaku himself. And it must be your lucky day, because the price has been reduced to - "

He turned away and covered his mouth, feeling sick. He heard the exorcist say mockingly, "Perhaps, my good man, you're haunted not by a ghost, but by your own guilty conscience?"

Gokiso gave him a sour look. "There's no reason I should be ashamed of making a little money."

**MITANI**

"A real go player would never play for money!"

Mitani turned off his MD player and gave his latest challenger a once-over. Not too impressive. School uniform on a Sunday, prissy haircut, a righteous quiver in his voice. Mitani turned on his music again, but deigned to say, "If you want to teach me a lesson you'll have to place a bet."

The challenger didn't look too surprised. He pulled out his wallet and threw down a few bills and coins on the table. "That's all I have."

Mitani's eyes flicked to the money. Thirty-six hundred yen, not bad from an elementary school kid. It would cover a week's worth of anti-nausea medicine.

"That's less than what I usually play for," Mitani said blandly. "But I could use some spare change. You ready to lose?"

The fool nodded.

**AKIKO**

"So Akira lost, did he?"

Akiko watched her husband's hands as they clenched at the folds of his hakama. She had never seen him so distraught.

"You have defeated Akira, but you lack his understanding of this game, and his love," he informed her. "You place the stones like a doll."

What answer could she give when he spoke the truth? She felt the first flutters of shame, then resentment. "Can you love me still if I bear this spirit within me?" she asked. "One which I did nothing to earn?"

"Of course," replied Kouyo, without hesitation.

But her husband's hungry gaze upon her was an alien thing.

**OCHI**

"Ochi, you freakin' alien, why are you in the bathroom again?"

"I keep losing to you," he said, but he wasn't talking to Waya. "All I do is lose. Again and again!"

**KISHIMOTO**

"Again I lose to little children," Kishimoto murmured.

The lastest issue of _Weekly Go_ was all about Touya Akira, Touya Akira, Touya Akira. Touya Akira, who was finally going to take the pro exam. Touya Akira, who was expected to breathe new life into the world of go. Touya Akira, who was two years younger than Kishimoto, a hundred times stronger, and completely unreachable even if Kishimoto slaved his life away in front of a goban.

Unless.

"I know you're still there, ghost," he said, glancing a little to the right. "I used to be an insei, I've lost enough games to recognize real strength when I see it. I know what you're offering me."

Kishimito could feel his smile twisting into something unpleasant.

"No thanks."

He turned away from the apparition to stare at the bright light of his computer screen.

**YANG HAI**

"Computers," said Yang, "Are the wave of the future. This...box, um, it can't make leaps of intuition like a human can, well it can, sort of, but let's say for simplicity's sake it can't, but it can do computations like you wouldn't believe - "

"Yang-man!" Xu's voice came from down the hall. "You talking to your computer again? You're even crazier than usual!"

Yang stuck his head out the door and yelled back, "Xu-xu, you talking out your ass again? You're even more shit-faced than usual!"

Xu gave him the one-fingered salute and a cheerful grin. Yang plunked back down into his chair in disgust. He put his hands behind his head, then leaned back far enough that he could stare, upside-down, at the figure behind him. Almost pleadingly he asked, "You'll help me find it, won't you?"

**KUWABARA**

"You won't find it even in a thousand lifetimes," said Kuwabara, "And this old man's lifetime is pretty much over. You're out of luck, Honinbou."

He tilted his head to the side and cupped a hand behind his ear in an exaggerated gesture.

"Yeah, I can hear your voice," he said to no one. "And I'll tell you this. Excellence you can reach for, but perfection, that's God's business. And I'm certainly not perfect. Heck, I'm gonna croak any day now."

"Doesn't matter, you say? Young and old, weak and strong, go is a game for two, hey?"

"Who told you that? The old Honinbou himself?"

A grin broke out on Kuwabara's face, the biggest grin of his long, long life.

"Okay, what the hell. If it applies across the board, it applies to me too. Let's dance, partner."

"Thank you," said Sai.

-End-

Author's note:

This was written for the second blind_go challenge on Livejournal in May 2007.


	15. Fine China

**Fine China**

"You've never heard of, um, what's the word, insei syndrome?" asked Yang Hai.

Isumi could honestly say he never had.

"Maybe it's just a Chinese thing then." Yang Hai rattled off a string of Mandarin before shrugging and switching back to Japanese. "Sorry, it doesn't translate very well."

"You can't just say 'it doesn't translate very well' and leave it at that."

Yang Hai shrugged again. Isumi could hear a multitude of unfamiliar sounds in the ensuing silence—the loud buzzing of a half-broken vending machine, the slaps and squeaks of flip flop-wearing feet, the steady murmur of Mandarin around them—and mixed in with all that was the sound of go being played, as timeless and universal a thing as anything Isumi knew.

"Time's up," said Yang Hai, pointing at Isumi's game clock.

Isumi placed a black stone. Yang Hai studied it for a few seconds before commenting, "You didn't think about that hand very much, did you?"

"I think I still need to work on my speed go."

"Yeah. But not as much as your friend Waya."

Inwardly, Isumi winced and glanced over at the other end of the room. Waya was probably getting slaughtered by Le Ping at that very moment.

"It's pretty pigheaded of him to keep playing Le Ping all the time when he keeps losing," Yang Hai added, as if reading Isumi's mind.

"He's usually not quite this stubborn." Isumi was trying to keep a neutral expression and probably failing miserably. "When we were insei, Waya always used to lose to this friend of ours named Fuku. He played really fast." He sounded almost apologetic.

Yang Hai's response, when it came, was noncommittal. "Ah, I see."

Sometimes Isumi wished Yang Hai could stop being his teacher for a while. Was there something wrong about worrying over Waya?

"Well, hey, it's the man himself," said Yang Hai suddenly, looking up from the board.

Isumi turned around and there was Waya.

"Hi," said Isumi, wondering how much Waya had heard. "How was it?"

"Hey," said Waya tiredly. "Yang-san, tell that little brat of yours I'll get him tomorrow."

"Why don't you tell him yourself?"

"I'm too busy restraining myself from killing him." Waya gestured at Le Ping, who was animatedly showing off the game he had just played to another child. "He can be a real nuisance sometimes."

"He reminds me of you when you were young," said Isumi with a smile. "Far too much energy."

"How I was, huh," said Waya.

Isumi realized he had said something wrong, but he didn't know what to say to make it right. There was an uncomfortable silence until Yang Hai said, "You two better get going before Li-sensei catches you. We're not supposed to have visitors this late."

"Yeah, we should get going before Le Ping starts demanding you play a game with him, Isumi-san," Waya added tiredly.

"I guess I resign," said Isumi.

"You were losing anyway." Yang Hai gave him an appraising look before shooing them away.

* * *

Under the fluorescent lights of the interior of the bus, Waya's face was far too pale and taut. He had always been tan and healthy before, hadn't he?

Isumi, being Isumi, didn't say anything about this. Instead, he said, "Do you know what insei syndrome is?"

Waya stirred in his seat, but kept staring out the window, not looking at Isumi.

"No idea. But let me guess—something Yang Hai said?"

"Yeah, but he didn't explain what it was."

"He says a lot of weird stuff," Waya murmured, his head falling against the window, his eyes drooping shut.

"He said something to you?"

"Hmm. He said, you know, how China is the middle kingdom? And how Japan and Korea and Mongolia or whatever used to be tributary states in some kind of weird Confucian way? But in this new world there's no centre to the universe, no middle kingdom for the planets to revolve around. There's only the temple of the self, and in the end it can't be understood by outsiders. His words, not mine." Waya yawned, his eyes watering.

"Okay..."

"Furthermore, the Great Wall," Waya droned on sleepily, "was not built merely for defense but also as a means of attack. 'Surely you understand this, being a go player?' When you place a stone, you claim territory as your own, however tenuously. Every stone has more than one role—and everything we build is a statement of some kind—because things aren't simple, right? Life isn't simple…and that sucks…"

Waya's voice was fading with sleep. Isumi doubted he would remember what he'd said in the morning.

It occurred to Isumi that he could not read his friend anymore, not the way he used to. Or rather, Waya was keeping himself closed, trying to keep his weaknesses from showing even here, when the board was not between them.

Isumi didn't like this new development, which was hypocritical of him—_emotional control_ was exactly the thing he had learned in China himself, last time. But sometimes he found himself wanting to shake Waya, to tell him he had no right to change himself like that, and that China wasn't some magical place where such a change was meant to happen.

Around them, he could hear the drone of the engines and the quiet conversations of the other passengers, unfathomable. He was in a bus in Beijing with Waya, in his own little cocoon of friendship, and yet he felt alienness pressing in on him from everywhere, within and without. For all the vast distances he had come, he suddenly wished for a moment he could go back to a time when all he'd ever wanted was to pass the pro exam so he could be in the same world as Waya, and Shindou, and every other pro he'd ever admired.

Eventually, Isumi fell asleep, thinking of great walls, and the building of them, stone by stone.

* * *

Author's note:

This fic was written for round 9 of the blind_go challenge on Livejournal in May 2010.

The idea of the Great Wall of China, and walls in general, being built for the purpose of both attack and defence was gleaned from the book The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC - AD 2000, which I've read a part of.


	16. The God of Go Singles Ad

**The God of Go Singles Ad**

_Yo yo yo  
I'm the God of Go  
I'm single, wanna mingle  
down to the last ko_

So don't be shy  
I'm a real nice guy  
I give a great nigiri  
up here in the sky

TSUKE ME 1-800-IGO-LUV

"I died twice for _this_?" said Sai.

* * *

Author's note: Aja (bookshop on livejournal) ACTUALLLY RAPPED THIS with REVERB and BEATBOXING and CHIPMUNK VOICES. It is amazing, no kidding. Go check it out at ihikago dot livejournal dot com slash 7432 dot html!


	17. Obsession for Men

**Obsession for Men**

"You wanna be my _what_?" Waya squawked.

"Your rival," Ochi enunciated, reminding himself that Waya, even if he could play a decent game of go, was still something of an idiot. "I hate to say this, but we're pretty evenly matched, we're not too far in age, and we seem to get get annoyed at each other a lot. It fits the pattern."

"Pattern?"

Ochi gestured at Touya and Shindou, who were off in their own little corner of Waya's apartment, radiating their usual absurd levels of obsession with each other, or something.

As they watched, Touya slowly, slowly moved his arm, grasped a stone between his outstretched fingers and, with a piercing look in Shindou's direction, laid the stone on the goban with a kind of vicious intensity.

Then there was the way Shindou stared back, not breaking eye contact at all as he played his own move - he must have very good peripheral vision, Ochi noted - as if was auditioning to be a poster boy for Obsession for Men and not playing, well, a board game.

"Ugh, you want to be like that?" Waya made a face.

"It's creepy," Ochi admitted, "but one can't argue with the results."

"Yeah, I guess it does help them focus."

Ochi nodded and rolled his eyes. Trust Waya to take this long to figure it out.

"What are you two talking about?" Isumi asked, coming over from his game with Honda, which seemed to be over. Honda was looking at the board in a depressed manner. "You seem to be talking pretty intensely."

Ochi nodded. "We're just discussing how to become rivals."

"It's Ochi's idea" Waya added quickly. "He says we should copy Shindou and Touya, since it seems to work so well for them."

"Oh?" Isumi gave them an odd look. "But what exactly does that mean, being rivals? In practical terms."

"Well," Ochi began, "Touya and Shindou meet twice a week on set days in a set place, discuss go, play games - "

"Yell at each other," Waya broke in.

"We can skip that. Let's see...watch games together, study kifu...and I notice they spend a lot of time with each other outside of go as well. I know they eat out together, watch movies sometimes, and I ran into them when they were shopping together once. They said they were buying a present for Shindou's mother. And they sometimes sleep over at each others' homes."

"They used to kind of stalk each other too," Waya noted, "before they hung out regularly."

"Yes, that too."

Isumi's eyes widened.

"Uh, guys, you know that Touya and Shindou are a couple, right?"

Ochi had not known that.

"What?" Ochi said, intelligently, at the same moment that Waya said, "Huh?" equally intelligently.

Isumi's tone was apologetic. "All that rival stuff you talked about, it's actually...boyfriend stuff."

Before Ochi (or Waya) could formulate...any kind of response at all to that world-shaking revelation, Fuku called out, "Hey, everyone, Kuwabara-sensei is doing an interview!" and every head in the room, thankfully, swivelled toward the TV.

"...You want to know my opinion on Ogata Juudan?" Kuwabara cackled, showing off his copious lack of teeth. "Why, he's my rival! My one and only, ever since Kouyo retired. Not that I'm the type to have more than one at a time, mind you. I'm a traditional sort of man, and I believe it's important to stay loyal to the one you've chosen."

"He and my dad were never like that," Touya swore.

Kuwabara was still talking; Ochi wished he would stop. "Yes, Ogata-kun is quite the spitfire, isn't he? Thinks he's quite something. The boy's been stalking me lately, I'll have you know, showing up at all my games and proclaiming - passionately - that he has no interest in me. Ha! As for our actual games together - dynamite, pure dynamite. Sometimes we share a smoke afterward if it was a particularly good one. Yes, we do have a wonderful rivalry, the two of us. But it'll be a long, long time before that young turk can  
catch this old codger, if ever. That's what keeps the flame going."

"I...see," said the hapless interviewer.

Kuwabara laughed his horrible old man laugh, and that seemed to be the cue for the end of the interview.

In the wake of that..._thing_, Ochi turned to Waya and said one word.

"Nevermind."


	18. Rival Shmival

**Rival Shmival**

"Is Ogata-sensei here my rival?" Kurata thought the question over, chewing his fat cheek like a cow chowing its cud. Ogata felt a little sick at being part of the question. "Well, I suppose he is! We're supposed to be the top contenders in this tournament, aren't we? So we must be at about the same level."

Ogata gave his "rival" a look that showed exactly what he thought of that.

"See! He agrees with me!"

"And there you have it!" declared Kosemachi (or whatever the reporter's name was) before Ogata could get a word in. "These two rising young stars of the go world are bitter rivals, destined to fight each other in the coming rounds of the New Under-Thirty Tournament! Whose go will reign supreme? Now let's cut to two even _younger_ players who are even_bitterer_ rivals."

A little ways away, Ogata could see another reporter accosting Akira and Shindou, who were standing very close to each other and fielding questions like old pros. Or young pros, rather. They probably got asked about their rivalry once a day.

"He's my rival and I'm his," Shindou was telling the cameras without a hint of embarassment. "I help make him stronger because he knows that I'll whoop him if he slacks off at all." The reporter was lapping it up; Akira was rolling his eyes.

"Do you get the feeling the press likes to create rivalries out of thin air to up the ratings?" Kurata asked suddenly.

There was a sharp look in his eyes. Ogata gave Kurata a surprised look, silently chiding himself for underestimating the man - Kurata Atsushi wasn't a fool, for all his foolishness.

"Of course they're doing it for ratings," Ogata replied. "Shindou Hikaru and Touya Akira are the best things that have happened to Weekly Go since Touya-sensei retired. The public are fascinated by them."

"Hm. But that's only because they're the real thing."

If Ogata thought he heard a note of regret in Kurata's voice, it was gone a moment later. He must have imagined it.

"Well, my bitter rival," Kurata addressed with his usual tiresome good humour. "How about we get something to eat before starting on the road to our destined battle? I know a place that has good beef bowls near here."

"Beef bowls?" Ogata pushed up his glasses; they were heavy and fell down his nose a lot. "I think with your salary you can afford something better than that. Udon or ramen at least."

"Don't be so snobby!" Kurata yelled even louder than Shindou did. "Just because you think you're an old geezer doesn't mean I have to be one."

Ogata tried not to grin like a shark. Rival shmival. He was going to suss out the enemy over their "friendly" lunch, and when it came time for their match he was going to crush that fat head until all that annoying overconfidence was squeezed out. No doubt Kurata was thinking the same thing, minus the part about the fat. Ogata was not fat.

"Actually, we can have udon, if you pay for it," Kurata said, seeming to change his mind all at once, like a child. "I think that's fair."

"...Fine, if it'll make you stop complaining."

"You're so kind, Ogata-kun. Thank you in advance."

"My pleasure."

Yes, who needed a rival when you had someone you truly wanted to destroy?


	19. The Games of Summer

**The Games of Summer**

"Wow, Waya, you really need air con," Shindou complained. It was the third time today he'd said "Wow, Waya." Waya would have thrown something at him by now if it weren't so hot.

"Just finish your stupid game so you can go home to your air-conditioned room," Waya groused. He pointed at the board between Shindou and Isumi, which was less than half-filled with stones.

"Whose turn is it? Is it my turn?" Shindou said to Isumi. "Actually I don't care. You go. I don't want to move."

Isumi sluggishly picked up a stone and moved his hand over the board, but apparently his sweaty fingers couldn't grip the stone properly; it fell from his fingers and landed on one of Shindou's black stones with an unseemly clinking sound, starting a chain reaction of stones scattering all over the place and ruining everything, ever. "Ah, sorry."

"Wow, this is just like the pro exam," Shindou said, then clapped his hands over his mouth. Oops. He blamed it on the heat.

"Really? Just like the pro exam?" Waya echoed, putting a nonchalant little lilt into his question. He'd always wondered what had happened between his friends during the pro exam. "So, er, Isumi-san dropped a stone and messed up the board during the exam?"

"Uh, not exactly," Shindou hedged. He noticed Isumi hadn't moved or said anything. "It was more like...well, maybe Isumi can tell you. If he wants to."

"It's nothing." Isumi's voice was eerily calm. He'd gone into that zen mode he'd learned in China. "I just accidentally moved a stone I had already placed. I cheated, so I lost."

"Oh," said Waya, blinking. So the incident was both more and less dramatic than he'd thought. Well, he'd think about it later. Time to repair the mood. "Hey, remember before the pro exam, when we went to all those go salons to train? We met all those weird old guys."

"Yeah," Shindou chimed in, eager to change the subject. "I really learned a lot that summer. Even though I was always third board." He grinned, as if being third board was something to be proud of.

Isumi smiled back at him. "It _was_ fun, wasn't it? Remember when you played Hong Suyong? That was an amazing game."

"It was," Waya agreed, remembering that sudden sense of foreboding he'd felt when he'd seen Shindou's newfound skill. But nowadays Waya could think about it without worrying so much. He'd grown since then, he knew.

"Yeah, that summer was really crazy." Shindou felt all wistful, remembering his last summer with Sai. It had all been so much fun. "You know, I think in the summer before that one, I first learned about Netgo."

"Hm, you did, did you?"

Shindou turned to Waya, who had a suspicious look on his face. "Ah, yeah, why is that interesting? That was when the Internet was starting to get really popular. Not that I, you know, used the Internet much then." Now he _really_ wanted to change the subject. " Anyway, for old times' sake, why don't we hit the salons and play some team games? I'll be third board!"

"That sounds good. We can find a salon with air conditioning," replied Isumi, looking down at the goban in front of him. "I don't feel like fixing this game anyway."

Waya was already getting up. "Yeah, let's go. Then I don't have to listen to Shindou gripe about the heat."

Shindou stuck his tongue out. "You're just jealous because I'll be going back to a nice cool room tonight."

"Yeah, well, some of us aren't so pampered that we don't feel the seasons."

"And some of us aren't hobos who live in a dump and make their mom do their laundry."

Isumi rolled his eyes, feeling like the much beleaguered big brother to these two. They were going to bully the heck out of him for the rest of the day, weren't they.

Waya, done arguing with Shindou for now, gave Isumi a sneaky little grin. "Hey, maybe you can treat us to sushi again. For old times' sake"

"Noooo."

"Yeeeeess."

"To the games of summer!" Hikaru crowed as Isumi shooed them out the door.


End file.
